Chapter 56: Turning Defeat into Victory

A tight shield wall composed of more than twenty men blocked the brunt of the bandits' charge. As the shield wall stabilized, the soldiers continuously thrust short spears and long swords, while bringing heavy hammers and battle-axes crashing down. Heavy casualties rippled through the bandits before the shields; in less time than it takes for a pouch of water to empty, five bandits had already fallen.

Realizing the shield wall could not be broken head-on, a bandit leader and three lacklings attempted to skirt around the formation to strike its flank and rear.

Art, who was just pulling his knight's sword out of a bandit's abdomen, spotted the men trying to bypass the shield wall and roared loudly to Ron, who was positioned on the left side of the formation: "Ron, enemies on the flank!"

Ron smashed an enemy to the ground with his shield, pulled Jason—who was frantically hacking away with his short sword—out of the shield wall, and sprinted toward the left flank.

By the time Ron reached the rear flank, several bandits had already cut down two wagon drivers who failed to reach the safety underneath the wagons, and had raised their axes to hack at a howling, arrow-ridden soldier lying on the ground. In the face of such danger, Ron did not hesitate for a second. He picked up a short spear from the ground and hurled it like a javelin with all his might at the axe-wielding bandit. The handaxe fell upon the wounded soldier's chest, knocked aside by the short spear along with its owner. The very instant the axe-wielding bandit collapsed, Jason rushed forward, holding his short sword horizontally, and delivered a sideways slash that notched the long blade of another lackling. With Jason joining the fray, Ron and Jason formed a back-to-back shield wall, fending off the bandits swarming them from three sides.

Benson, having narrowly escaped death, stopped rolling. Once he pushed past the initial panic and piercing pain, his martial courage returned; he knew that if Ron and Jason failed to hold off these flanking bandits, he too would not escape the next falling axe.

An arrow was embedded in Benson's left shoulder, leaving his entire left arm numb. He took a deep breath, used his right arm to prop himself up, and slowly rose to his feet. Drawing the wooden-handled short knife at his waist, he let out a battle cry and lunged at the three bandits surrounding Ron and Jason. The bandit who was fiercely hacking at Ron's wooden shield failed to notice Benson charging from behind. Enduring the agony, Benson closed the distance in a few strides and slammed directly into the bandit's back. The impact staggered the bandit, and the wooden-handled short knife sank deep into his spine. The bandit twisted his head backward as a mouthful of blood surged from his chest and lungs; then he went limp, collapsing to the ground in a violent fit of spasms.

With one opponent eliminated, the pressure on Ron and Jason eased instantly. After taking a shallow slash to his arm, Ron drove his broadsword into the bandit leader's stomach. The remaining lackling, worn down by Ron and Jason's alternating blows, finally cracked under the pressure and began retreating step by step, attempting to merge back into the main bandit force.

In front of the shield wall, the bandits had spontaneously abandoned their frontal assault, trying instead to slip around to the flanks to avoid the ever-thrusting blades. Yet, under the direction of Art and Odo, the shield wall continuously adjusted its orientation, keeping its front locked squarely against the bulk of the enemy.

The scattered bandits on the flanks of the shield wall were locked onto by Baron Beryon and two squires who had just galloped back. Baron Beryon and his squires were seasoned veterans of brutal battlefields; facing seven or eight bandits, they showed not a shred of fear. Their swords and spears held no fancy tricks—every movement was simple, crisp, and fatal. Within moments, three more bandits had fallen beneath Baron Beryon's blade.

As time dragged on, the tide on the clearing began to turn. Although several border patrollers had fallen, the bandits had already left a dozen corpses before the shield wall, yet the formation showed no sign of breaking. The momentary gaps left by fallen soldiers were instantly plugged by the men beside them.

After slaying the final bandit attempting to bypass the shield wall, Ron did not immediately return to the formation. Instead, he and Jason hurried to the hitching post, untied the reins of two warhorses, leaped into the saddles, and wheeled the mounts around. They made a wide semi-circle toward the rear of the bandits. Once the horses gained speed, Ron hurled a short spear at the enemy, drew the broadsword at his waist, and charged obliquely into the bandits' rear.

The rear-guard lacklings spotted the cavalry galloping from the flank and cried out in terror: "Cavalry! The cavalry is charging!" Without a backward glance at their comrades who were still fighting desperately, they turned and fled toward the direction they had come from.

Hearing the warnings of their comrades, several bandits glanced back to see the two charging horsemen, and instinctively began retreating backward. This movement triggered a chain reaction among those standing nearby.

When Ron and Jason thundered in on horseback, seven or eight bandits had already fled a dozen paces. The two riders drove their horses straight into the cluster of bandits; a dull chorus of splintering bones and tearing tendons rang out as several bandits were struck down and sent flying by the warhorses...

"Pursue in scattered groups!"

"Roar!"

With a mighty shout, the shield wall splintered into five or six three-man tactical groups, charging forward to cut down the retreating bandits...

***

"Art, hold the pursuit! Mount up and intercept them; don't let them escape into the dense forest." Seeing that the battle's outcome was sealed, Baron Beryon stopped Art, who was preparing to lead a charge. He turned, ran back to the hitching post, unhitched the reins, leaped into the saddle, and led his two squires toward the edge of the woods.

Art followed suit, mounting his horse and giving chase.

***

On the other side, the sharp-faced, monkey-cheeked leader was currently consumed by bitter regret. He had anticipated beforehand that these men in black would not be easy to deal with, and after much deliberation, he had devised a strategy of lulling the enemy into complacency before launching a surprise attack.

Over the past three days, dozens of bandits had hidden in the woods more than five miles away from the convoy, trailing far behind. They had subsisted for days on hard bread washed down with cold water, all to avoid detection by the convoy's guards, hoping to create the illusion that no one dared prey upon them. In truth, they had largely succeeded. In the past, the men in black would scout a two-mile radius around the camp before nightfall and continuously dispatch sentries to patrol the perimeter. Today, however, they had merely given the campsite a hasty glance without thorough reconnaissance, and the men assigned to watch duty had dragged their feet in taking up their posts.

The sharp-faced leader had decisively seized the moment, pushing hard for an assault before nightfall. Yet he never imagined that the black-robed soldiers in the camp would react with such astonishing speed. Before they could even charge out of the forest, the men in black had already begun assembling; by the time they seized their final chance to burst from the treeline, a dozen black-robed soldiers had already formed ranks in the clearing, with more continuously swelling the shield wall...

Yet the sharp-faced leader no longer had time to ponder why his numerically superior force had been so easily crushed. The deep, bloody hole in his inner thigh, pierced by a short spear, was growing numb. To approach the convoy silently, their horses had been stowed deep within the forest. The five or six lacklings who had fled earlier had already plunged into the woods; once those fellows made off with the horses that were his only ticket to survival, a wounded man like him truly wouldn't be able to escape.

With barely a dozen paces remaining before he could slip into the forest, he cursed at the two subordinates supporting his escape to pick up their pace, stumbling frantically toward the treeline.

Just as he thought he was about to reach the safety of the woods, several cavalrymen suddenly surged out from his right flank. Before the sharp-faced leader could even turn his head to look, he was knocked to the ground by a warhorse, and his vision went completely black...

***

Night had fallen completely, and the clearing before the dense forest was ablaze with the light of numerous campfires.

Half a mile around the perimeter of the camp, Odo personally led two full combat squads on continuous armed patrols to guard against potential threats. After all, over a dozen lacklings had managed to escape into the woods during the evening skirmish, and their grand chieftain was currently locked up right inside the camp; they might take a desperate gamble and raid the camp at any moment.

Around several bonfires within the camp, the border patrol soldiers who had survived the bloody battle chewed hungiously on charred, fragrant smoked meat while loudly boasting of their fierce valor and feats in the evening's fight.

Inside a large military tent, Spencer the cook was "treating" a wounded soldier whose abdomen had been sliced wide open, with the help of three other soldiers. He was desperately stuffing the soldier's spilling entrails back into his belly. The relentless gush of blood soaked Spencer's hands through and through, and the agonizing pain drove the wounded soldier to thrash and roar continuously.

Spencer bellowed at the assisting soldiers: "Useless trash! I told the three of you to hold him down—are you all a bunch of soft-spined cowards?"

Catching a glimpse of a wounded soldier sitting nearby with an arrow in his shoulder, Spencer snapped his head around and scolded: "Hey, you! Are you blind? Get your ass over here and lend a hand. It's just an arrow, stop playing dead and crawl over here!"

Finished cursing the wounded soldier, Spencer went right back to cramming intestines into the belly, muttering under his breath the whole time: "Bloody bad luck, worked to the bone like a beast all day long, and now I have to play barber-surgeon too. If I'd known this, I'd have been better off staying a frontline soldier..."

In the small tent next door, shrill, pig-like screams drowned out the groans of the wounded in the medical tent. Baron Beryon stood with his arms folded, watching with keen interest as Art used a sword hilt to break the fingers of the sharp-faced, ugly wretch one by one. Every time a finger was shattered, it drew a room-shaking shriek of agony.

***

"I'll ask one last time: do you have any other accomplices, and where is your bandit lair?"

The sharp-faced man's features were twisted in a grimace, his teeth gritted so hard they drew blood. Three of his fingers had already been crushed, and he was hovering on the verge of fainting from the pain.

"Spare me... I'll give you all my wealth," the sharp-faced man managed to squeeze out through blood-slicked teeth.

Art took a pouch of salt handed over by Ron and slowly sprinkled it directly onto the wound on the sharp-faced man's leg. The sharp-faced man stared in horror at the white powder cascading over the bloody cavity on his inner thigh: "Bastard! What is that you're throwing on me?"

Art stared at the coarse salt crystals slowly melting into the rim of the wound and said, "Don't rush, you'll find out in a moment." With that, he pressed the salt grains deep into the flesh with his finger.

"Ahhh!!~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~"

***

"Ron, tomorrow at dawn, you and Jason must ride hard back to Sapph, inform Lord Galvin of the battle here, and ask him to dispatch troops to take charge of the prisoners."

"Oh, and tell him that basically all the bandits of the southern hills are right here; the few remaining small fry won't pose any major threat to his caravan. So remind him not to forget to pay me a portion of my wages in advance, and we can negotiate the rest once we return safely."

"My lord, since we've wiped out the southern hills' bandits so quickly, I'm afraid Lord Galvin might not be so willing to hand over the wages." Ron had witnessed the cunning of merchants firsthand, especially a merchant draped in noble pretensions.

Art wiped the slippery blood from his hands onto the flap of the military tent and said, "I reckon Lord Galvin is a man of honor; he won't quibble over a little loose change. Besides, he still has all those livestock and wagons waiting for us to escort back."

Art lifted Ron's still-dripping arm, inspected it for a moment, and said, "Go find someone to bandage that up, then get some rest and grab a bite to eat. Oh, and fetch Bass and Tubah. Never mind Kazak, he's injured, let him rest a bit longer."

"Understood, my lord."

Seeing Ron walk away toward the bonfire, Art turned and stepped back into his military tent. Baron Beryon's two squires were in the middle of dragging the sharp-faced man's corpse out of the tent. Stepping inside, Art addressed Baron Beryon: "My lord, we should discuss whether it's necessary to root out the rest of these bandits once and for all—"